Binalakshmi Nepram is a writer-activist working towards a disarmament movement in India. Ms Nepram has published several articles and papers relating to armed violence, small arms proliferation, peace processes, women and peace building. She is author of two books, South Asia's Fractured Frontier: Armed Conflict, Narcotics and Small Arms Proliferation in India's Northeast and Meckley, a historical fiction based on the conflict in Manipur. Her forthcoming book India and the Arms Trade Treaty will be published in April 2008. In 2004, Ms Nepram co-founded the Control Arms Foundation of India (CAFI), India's first civil society organization working on conventional disarmament issues. In 2007, in order to help thousands of women who are affected by gun violence in her home-state of Manipur, she launched the Manipuri Women Gun Survivor Network. Ms Nepram was voted as one of the 50 young promising Indians making a difference to society by "The Week" magazine in January 2008.

I
dedicate this article to the more than 5000 women who have lost their lives or been
wounded by gun violence in my home-state of Manipur in Northeast
India.

As the world knows, India is the birthplace of Mahatma
Gandhi, the land where non-violence was born. Last year the United Nations declared
that his birthday, 2October, would become International
Day of Non-Violence. The India
that existed at the time of independence championed peace and disarmament. However,
sad to say, the India
of today is very different. While many know of India's
economic rise, I know of an India
that is weaponized and arming itself to the teeth.

In February 2008, over 450
arms companies came to India's
capital New Delhi
to sell their wares at an international arms bazaar. India, my country, is the second
most heavily armed nation in the world, and the majority of an estimated 40
million firearms are in civilian possession. There are 900,000 arms-licensed
holders in the state of Uttar Pradesh alone, while the number of arms dealers
is pegged at 1400. In the words of one gun dealer at the bazaar, "Gun shops are
mushrooming in the state of Uttar Pradesh like public telephone booths".

Living with the gun

I have seen and felt the sense of fear that the gun
instills. When I came to Delhi from Manipur, I felt a need to understand the weapon that has controlled our
lives on the Indo-Burma border.Let
me take you back there to illustrate why women like myself and many others are
taking steps to stop gun violence.

Northeast India has been facing the onslaught of ethnic-based armed
conflicts since the late 1940s. The region is home to more than 70 major
population groups and sub groups, speaking approximately 400 languages and
dialects. The fire of insurgency has long engulfed this strategic region and
has held development to ransom. Violent and vociferous demands by different ethnic
groups for independence and for new states in the Northeast have been made for
the past five decades. I believe that no other region of India, South Asia,
indeed the world, must have seen such a proliferation and mushrooming of
militant outfits which now form a complex matrix.

Growing
up in this region, I thought all this was natural. It was only after I came to New Delhi that I realized
that the situation was not at all normal. I then stumbled upon a 1997 UN
document titled "Trafficking
in Small Arms and Sensitive Technologies". That book combined with a white
paper on small arms written by the Canadian Government, changed my life and inspired
me to undertake research into arms proliferation in my society. I conducted
research for over two years and published my research findings as a book,titled South
Asia's Fractured Frontier (New
Delhi, Mittal Publications, 2002). I discovered fifty-seven
types of small arms which have flooded into Northeast
India in the past few years. The weapons came from China, Pakistan,
Belgium, Thailand, Russia,
United States of America, United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia,
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia,
Burma and of late, Israel.

The
effect of this small arms proliferation has been alarming. Young people have
taken up the path of gun violence resulting in death, decay and destruction socially,
politically and economically. Every year 300,000 people are killed around the
world because of small arms. In Manipur, not a day passes without a gun
killing. Writing this book empowered me to keep on working on gun control
however, so I can safely say that research undertaken by women is one of the
important ways that women can act to control gun violence.

Mobilising civil society

In
2001 the UN addressed the issue of small arms and light weapons for the first
time in its history when it launched the United Nations Programme
of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (UNPoA). UNPoA has become a dead
paper for many countries, but for some concerned citizens it was a real opportunity to take further action against guns and
gun violence. We organized meetings on the issue in India
in five different cities - Manipur, Delhi, Jammu, Mumbai and Chennai - and we called upon the government
of India
to implement it. However, even as India kept submitting report after
report to the UN on the small arms issue claiming that it was adhering to UNPoA,
the work was never translated on the ground. In response, we mobilized civil
society and in 2004 formed the Control Arms
Foundation of India in New Delhi (CAFI). The aim
of the foundation is to address issues relating to the proliferation of small arms
and light weapons as they effect civil society, particularly women, children
and the elderly, and also to create a movement in the sub-continent where defence
and security issues are debated through informed debate, particularly as they
relate to policies.

CAFI proposes new ideas for thinking about security, for instance
to look at women-led disarmament policies and programmes to make human security
a fundamental right, and to make disarmament a movement in the country, which
is meaningful to people's lives. The formation of strong civil
society organization directly addressing the issue of small arms is one of the most
effective actions taken by women in India to combat gun violence.

The Control
Arms Foundation's work has included re-drafting India's gun legislation. We are
working with a team of lawyers and have identified several loopholes in the
Indian Arms Act, namely:

There
is no definition of "prohibited persons" and it is left to the discretion of the
licensing authority in granting and refusal of licences

punishment
for violation of the law is lenient

there
is no system for making instant criminal background checks

there
is no coherent system for conducting a census of the registered arms and
ammunition by the respective state governments, whether by a self-disclosure
scheme, police authorities or by a special wing in the Collectors Office.

We are
calling for a restriction on the number of guns per household to one; currently
an Indian citizen can procure three weapons per licence. We are also demanding
that the permission of two household members, one of whom should be a woman,
must be sought while applying for a gun licence.

Besides
this work, we also lobby Indian disarmament officials, parliamentarians and think
tanks, and network with other NGOs. We have conducted mass awareness programmes
such as an essay contest titled "What guns
have done to my country?" We also made three films; "Gun Wars and Drug Deaths (2003)", "Gunning for Control (2006)" and "The Story of the Manipuri Women Gun
Survivors (2008)" on gun control issues and organized photo exhibitions
related to gun violence.

Breaking the mould in Manipur

A
third area of our work against gun violence takes the form of direct
intervention in the lives of women gun survivors. As women we have set up the Manipur
Women Gun Survivors Network (MWGSN), which is the first of its kind in India to offer
victim assistance to women gun survivors.

Manipur is one of the most conflict-ridden states
in India.
In 2006 alone, nearly 300 people lost their lives to gun violence. The women of
Manipur suffer most in this conflict - even when they are not directly
targeted. They are traumatized by the deaths of family members. They bear the
brunt of both the emotional and socio-economic impacts of violence and many
women have become impoverished after the killing of male relatives, who had
been working for the survival of the family.

The idea for the Manipuri Women Gun Survivor
Network (MWGSN) came from an incident on 24 December, 2004. That Christmas Eve,
I witnessed
the aftermath of the killing of 27-year-old Buddhi Moirangthem in Wabgai
Lamkhai village in Manipur. There, a group of three gunmen dragged Buddhi from
his car-battery workshop. And within minutes they shot him dead. Even today, his
24-year-old widow Rebika Akham does not know who the killers were and why they
killed her husband. Days after the incident, 4500 rupees were contributed by myself and other committed people to buy a sewing machine for Rebika. This was
the first ever intervention of MWGSN and enabled her to stitch clothes for villagers
and to secure a living. The Manipuri Women Gun Survivor Network was formed in
2007 to help women like Rebika Akham.

MWGSN attempts to lift women above the trauma and
agony faced in the conflict. It helps women survivors of gun violence to find ways
to heal the scars which decades of living under the shadow of a gun have caused
the community. Direct intervention is based upon a gender sensitive approach to
the gun crisis, and by supporting women economically it brings them forward to
play a crucial role in small arms policy. It is the first initiative of its
kind in India.
It assists in small-scale entrepreneurial work and is working towards building
sustainable livelihood measures for gun-affected women in Manipur. Manipur
enjoys a distinct place among the handloom zones in India and like many of the Manipuri
women most of the gun survivors are skilled in making handloom and handicraft
items. The Network helps women gun survivors to open bank accounts and provides
small loans of 3000 to 9000 Rupees. With the help of this money the women are
able to carry on work such as silk reeling, weaving and other occupations such
as fishery or mushroom farming.

We also form "solidarity networks" of
committed young people who believe in helping the survivors and controlling the
use and spread of small arms. They keep in touch with these women and assist
them in whatever way they can. Women affected by gun violence can now live
their lives with newfound courage.

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